There’s a simple exercise I’ve heard of for finding your shadow. Simply write on a piece of paper everything you dislike seeing in other people and then put your name at the top; that’s your shadow. Although I’ve done this as a thought experiment, I’d like to actually go through with it and see what I learn about myself. For now, though, I want to talk about projection, or seeing in other people what we dislike about ourselves.
I’ve been familiar with the concept of projection for a while now but I’ve only recently started seriously contemplating it. It makes a lot of sense to me. For example, if I’m getting upset at someone for being short-tempered, then am I not also allowing anger to control me? Yet it’s so much easier to see a particular behavior in someone else than it is to see it in myself. Additionally, I don’t know what set off the other person, but I know that I’m getting upset merely because they are. It’s entirely possible that their fuse is longer than mine and that they are showing more control of their emotions than I am. Either way, since I can’t make anyone else change their behavior, it’d be better for me to focus more on what I do and less on what anyone else does. I have at least some degree of control over my behavior and, I think, I’m steadily gaining more control as I work on self-improvement.
Noticing what I dislike in other people can be beneficial if I’m clever about it. It gives me an opportunity to pause and examine myself to see if there is something about myself that I can change. Once I do that, I can easily let go of whatever thoughts, emotions, or feelings are attached to the people around me and be at peace. The initial part of the process takes either a great deal of awareness of my own actions or a lot of love and understanding for other people (or both). Fortunately, as with everything else, this gets easier the more I do it. And, as I get better at it, it provides me with an increasing amount of peace and freedom, which makes all of this well worth the effort.